Aldean's front and center view of the carnage that unfolded when a gunman opened fire on concertgoers - killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 others in the worst mass shooting in modern USA history - has haunted him, he told TODAY in his first on-camera interview since the October 1 massacre.

"It was hectic - just panic", he said. "You just didn't know what was going on".

Aldean and everyone with him made it offstage without being harmed, but "Everybody just kind of panicked, and didn't really know where to go, or what to do. So I looked over at my monitor guys that's on the side of the stage as if to say 'What is that?' and 'Fix it, '" he recalled.

Aldean and his musicians escaped the shooting physically unscathed, but the details that shooter Stephen Paddock fired a barrage of bullets onto people before apparently taking his own life was crushing. "It was just kind of insane, pandemonium". The country singer didn't take time to process the situation, though, until later on.

"I feel like at the end of the day there's so much focus on, you know, politics and race, and all these other things that you know, at the end of the day, like, we're all in this together", the Nashville artist said. We spend so much time arguing with each other and not enough time working on the issue. "At the end of the day, we're all in this together. I just hope everybody can start to heal", he said. "Some of this stuff you never get over", he said. "I hope it gets better for everybody as time goes on".